THUNDER BAY — With an overrepresentation of Indigenous people involved in the justice system, one organization hopes to make an impact by teaching youth about their rights, navigating the system and advocating for themselves.
Feathers of Hope, an Indigenous youth-led charitable organization, hosted its “On the Wings of Justice” gathering on Friday for youth to discuss and learn about the criminal justice system.
Carmalita Yesno, from Eabametoong First Nation, was one of 60 local First Nation high school, college and university students who came to hear from legal professionals at the Superior Inn Hotel and Conference Centre.
Yesno came for the week to learn about the youth justice program with the Kiikenomaga Kikenjigewen Employment and Training Services (KKETS) under its wellness department.
The program is important for their community and youth members who, she said, she sees are involved in crime a lot and injustices.
“I myself have faced injustices within the court and I think being able to integrate Indigenous ways into that will help prevent more youth from going down that path or having to struggle from going through the court process,” said Yesno.
Yesno said she thinks there should be more ways in the community for youth, particularly Indigenous youth.
“We’re so put down by just people in general and how they have stereotypes against us, which is not true and I think people should do more research about us and that we’re not like that,” said Yesno.
Jasmine Mcguire, also a KKETS student from Eabametoong First Nation, said she was there to learn and also see other people’s stories about the youth justice system.
“It’s very important to be able to see from different perspectives and to be able to see how we can implement our culture and how it is being implemented in the different… systems,” said Mcguire.
“I think it’s a relatively new thing from the youths’ perspective, so it’s important that we educate them about what does exist out there and then to get their input around other programs and services perhaps that would benefit them as young people,” said Betty Kennedy, the CEO of Feathers of Hope.
Kennedy said they’re also very interested in gathering youth input with respect to justice issues.
“We’d like to know from their perspective what they feel are the issues that most affect them and then to also learn about existing restorative justice practices that exist out there,” Kennedy said.
Alice Chattaway, the Feathers of Hope’s youth team lead, started volunteering with the organization last July before starting to work in April. She said so far, she has done a lot of engagements at high schools and some research.
“I find a lot of the students that we talk to at the schools who actually end up coming, they have a lot of fun and they make some friends and they learn a lot of new things that could be useful,” said Chattaway.
Before she started volunteering, she added that she didn’t think there was much youth input on important topics like this, but now there are quite a few gatherings that they’ve done.
For Chattaway, it feels really empowering: “You just come out of your shell a little bit more.”
“I’m still kind of in my shell, but I’m starting to come out a little bit more and it’s really nice to learn new things and see how you’ve grown over the time of coming to these conferences,” said Chattaway.
During the conference, Kennedy added that youth had concerns about jurisdictional issues and the passing of legislation, such as Bill 5 and the potential loss of more land in their territory.
Education for them was also important, she said, as one of the comments they hear is that youth have learned something about what is out there with the existing programs and have some very important insights about what would be helpful for them.
“We envision that this event will lead into one next year,” said Kennedy.
“With respect to our relationship, we’ve established with the Law Foundation of Ontario and we hope to… take what we learned today and to enhance it and perhaps take it out on a more regional level to, to gain the insights of youth, outside of the urban areas.”
